


Central Sensitization

by lapsus_calami



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bodyswap, Chronic Pain, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, Misuse Of Medical Jargon Probably, Story is far more angsty and serious than the summary makes it sound, even if i'm still in denial that his name is leonard snart, i don't really watch these shows, i'm just...like weirdly intrigued okay weirdly obsessed with leonard snart, if i've butchered the characterization i apologize and plead creative rights, onto actual tags of merit, should i include a tag for angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8106862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapsus_calami/pseuds/lapsus_calami
Summary: Central sensitization: a condition of the nervous system that is associated with the development and maintenance of chronic pain where the nervous system goes through a process called “wind-up” and gets regulated to a persistent state of heightened reactivity.Leonard Snart and Barry Allen swap bodies and learn something new about one another in the process. Len had forgotten what it felt like to not be in pain and Barry gets a reminder of what it was like before he got his speed. It's a fun few days for all involved.





	1. Proprioception

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InsaneNerdGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneNerdGirl/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is written for, um, [therealleonard](http://therealleonard.tumblr.com) who flung a request for Len with chronic pain into the void, like, months ago and this has been slowly worked on since then.

**Central Sensitization: _Proprioception_**

Leonard Snart was no stranger to pain. In fact pain had been his one and only constant companion for the last fifteen or so years of his life. More constant than Lisa, more constant than Mick, pain had always accompanied him since childhood. A constant thrumming ache through his bones, skin pulled tight and painful around his many scars, deep aching pain in his right shoulder and elbow that never really eased, persistent throbbing in his left knee and hip, frequent flashes of pain from his left foot, a never ending headache that was in a constant state of flux but never really ceased regardless of how many Tylenol he took.

No, Len was no stranger to pain. In fact, he barely registered it anymore. The aches in his bones and joints and head were just a part of him, something he had to deal with and deal he did never begrudging even a second of it. Everything hurt and that was just the way things were. Len was always in pain and after fifteen years he barely felt it anymore.

What Len was a stranger to, however, was stretching out in the morning like a lazy cat and feeling _nothing_. No ache in his shoulder, no flare in his elbow, no pinch as the skin around his scars pulled tight. Nothing. Just smoothly functioning limbs and the pleasant warmth of extending muscles.

Len picked up his head and blinked. And, huh, that was weird because Len was pretty damn sure he hadn’t been able to see color with his left eye since his first stay in Iron Heights and yet here he was drinking in the sight of bright red bed sheets. Speaking of which, these were not his sheets and this was not his bed. Hell this wasn’t even his room from _any_ of his houses. This wasn’t even _a room_ in any of his houses.

Marveling at the fact that his limbs moved without complaint and more fluidly than he could remember them moving in years Len rolled from the bed and crept towards the partially closed door. He slipped through, moving silently and quickly down the hallway keeping a keen eye and ear out for any small motion or noise. He didn’t know if it was the lack of low throbbing in his head or something else but Len felt like he could hear _everything_.

Balanced on the balls of his feet Len eased down the stairs toward the sound of voices. Halfway down he froze in shock staring at the family pictures hanging on the wall next to his head. Specifically the family pictures of Barry Allen. He was in Barry “The Flash” Allen’s house. Of course he was, because if Len was going to wake up randomly in anyone's house of course it was the house of a speedster playing hero and his goddamn cop of a stepfather. Of course.

Rerouting his mental escape path Len bypassed the kitchen and people within entirely heading instead for the back door at the end of the hall. He had no idea what he was doing here, couldn’t remember anything past heading for the bank yesterday with Mick and Lisa, and for once he wasn’t all that keen on putting the pieces together just yet. Not until he was more settled and figured out what the hell was wrong with him. So, first order of business, find Lisa and Mick.

He slipped on the first pair of sneakers he found and grabbed a heavy jacket to help insulate him from the increasingly chilly weather; just because his joints weren’t aching now didn’t mean they wouldn’t start once the cold air starting to sink in. Two steps from the door footsteps sounded behind him and he froze as a confused voice clearly said, “Barry?”

Len wrapped his hand around the doorknob barely registering the pleasant coolness of the metal against his skin and the absence of pinpricking needles that usually accompanied such actions as he slowly twisted to peer over his shoulder. He was unsure of what reaction he should be expecting but Iris’ pinched brows and concern were not it.

“Barry, what are you doing out of bed?”

And that…that _definitely_ wasn’t what he was expecting. Why the hell was she calling him Barry?

“What are you thinking?” Iris continued coming even closer. Len clenched his hand around the doorknob weighing the odds of staying to puzzle this out or fleeing to the relative safety of the streets. “Waking up and running out without a word? Are you trying to make us all worry to death? Come on, back to bed with you. Caitlin said you had to rest.”

She reached out, clearly aiming to grab Len’s arm and he jerked away just in time to barely feel the graze of her fingertips. Iris paused, hand still outstretched and eyes narrow like she was putting some part of this puzzle together. “Barry?” she said again, this time with a definite note of inquiry in the word.

 _And_ that was his cue. The streets won out, and Len was done with the weirdness. He wrenched the door open and took off running faster than he ever had before. Distantly he noted that, for once, every step didn’t ache.

* * *

The first thing Barry registered was pain. Bone deep and aching pain like he’d been run over by a freight train. Twice. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this much pain just lying still in his life. It was different from being injured. There was no one point of origin, just a low and steady constant sense of aching.

He groaned, something unintelligible rolling off his tongue as he struggled to pull his eyelids open. The bright light from the window sliced through his brain prompting another groan as he flung a hand over his face to shield his eyes. His elbow smarted painfully at the abrupt movement, and Barry bit his lip to stifle down another moan. Dear God, something had really done a number on him.

After a few moments the stabbing pain in his head lessened to something manageable and he carefully pried his eyes open again squinting at the still obnoxiously bright sunlight slanting through the partially closed blinds. The world looked weird. Weird and wrong beyond Barry not recognizing the room he was in. Everything was dull and drab, half washed out like it was cloaked in shadow. Barry blinked, kneading at his eyes but it didn’t seem to help any.

He pushed himself into a sitting position wincing as more aches and pains made themselves known and, Jiminy Cricket, he felt like one giant bruise. Shoving himself off the bed he nearly faceplanted when his left leg buckled beneath his weight, shooting pain radiating from his knee. Barry barely caught himself against the nightstand glaring down at the offending appendage when it dawned on him suddenly that it was not his.

It was a very odd realization, but the foot at the end of his leg most definitely wasn’t _his_ foot. Namely because the last time Barry had checked _his_ foot still had all his toes and _this_ foot didn’t. So it wasn’t his foot, and these pants weren’t his pants, and this nightstand he was clutching at was not his nightstand, and the hands clutching at said nightstand were not his hands.

“Lenny?”

Barry started, jerking around and hissing as sore muscles protested. He cracked his elbow against the wall causing a white-hot flare of agony to race up his arm. “Ow,” he said blinking as he tried to make sense of the woman in the doorway. He was pretty sure it was Lisa Snart and, “Did you just call me Lenny?”

That voice definitely was not his either.

Lisa frowned, eyebrows knitting together and hand falling down to the gold gun strapped to her hip. “Hey, Mick?” she called never dropping her gaze from Barry who was growing more and more confused with each passing second.

There were several thudding steps and then Mick Rory in all his intimidating glory was behind her shoulder glancing over Barry with a calculating eye. “What?” he rumbled.

“Something’s wrong with Lenny,” Lisa said and Mick grunted easing past her into the room.

He took several steps forward but halted still a fair distance away squinting as he stared intently at Barry. “Boss?”

And, okay, Barry had a good idea whose foot he was tripping over and whose hands he was holding up in a non-threatening surrender. “Okay, just chill, all right?” he said internally wincing at the completely unintentional pun. “Something really weird is going on.”

Mick eased back a step sharing a look with Lisa, the two of them seeming to have a silent conversation with nothing more than eyebrow twitches and subtle head nods. After a moment Lisa vanished leaving Barry alone with an increasingly irritated looking Mick.

“Look,” Barry started again still trying to figure out why exactly he wasn’t him. “I don’t know what’s going on but if we can just be civil about everything I’m sure—”

He cut himself off as Lisa stormed back in looking thunderous and thrusting something at Barry’s head. He flinched away, grimacing as muscles objected strongly, and struggled to focus on the thing suddenly three inches from his eyes.

“I take it this isn’t you?” Lisa said and Barry blinked focusing on the mirror in her hand, eyes going wide and mouth falling open because the face staring back at him in distorted partial grayscale definitely wasn’t his, and even if he'd kind of already figured that out it was still nine kinds of strange to see _that_ face in the mirror.

“Oh.”

Lisa hummed and dropped the mirror to the bed with a grim sigh. “That’s what I thought,” she said pinning Barry with a cold look. “So, who are you and where is my brother?”

* * *

So Len had officially crossed into weird territory. Well, technically, he’d crossed into weird territory when he’d reached up to run a hand over his head and encountered _hair_. And lots of it. Len hadn’t had this much hair since he was fourteen and his father discovered hair made a great handhold to keep his head underwater. He spent several minutes internally freaking out that he’d somehow managed to loose a couple months or so of time before he found a widow to look at his reflection. That was when he officially hit weird because the face staring back at him was that of Barry Allen and not his own.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he murmured leaning in closer and running fingers over smooth skin and through thick hair. He stepped back staring down at unfamiliar hands wondering how the hell he’d missed noticing that the hands didn’t belong to him. Len was intimately familiar with his own hands, prized them above all other parts of his body because they were the instruments of his trade. He worked hard to keep his hands fluid and dexterous, had a set amount of exercises he moved through multiple times a day to keep the pain and stiffness at an absolute minimum. Having hands that weren’t his, ones that moved easily and gracefully without even a hint of stiffness, was refreshing but also so inherently wrong that Len had the irrational urge to claw at his own skin. Barry’s skin. Whatever.

He settled for jamming his hands, Barry’s hands, into the pockets of the coat he’d stolen. Although, was it really stolen if it technically belonged to the body wearing it? Len would argue against it if anyone brought it up.

If he was in Barry’s body then it stood to reason Barry was in Len’s body. And if Len had woken up in Barry’s house it stood to reason that Barry would be waking up in Len’s house. One of Len’s houses at least.

Len made his way down the street casually bumping into a few people along the way. It took a few tries, Barry’s body was weirdly clumsy, and garnered a few irritated and suspicious looks—though notably less than when he was in his own body, which Len chalked up to Barry looking like a goddamn textbook Boy Scout—but eventually Len snagged a couple wallets without any trouble. The second one he picked had an attached change purse, and Len immediately dug out a quarter heading towards the payphone on the corner of the street. He dialed Lisa’s number from memory, holding the receiver between his shoulder and ear as he scanned the street and only vaguely noting how the scrunching up of his shoulder, Barry’s shoulder, didn’t hurt. Like at all. Len had forgotten that such motions weren’t actually painful for most people.

The call clicked over and Lisa answered guardedly, probably suspicious of who would be calling if Mick and what she thought was Len were both with her.

“Lise,” Len said. “Don’t hang up. Listen something very strange is—”

 _“The Flash is in your body,”_ Lisa said.

Len paused, processed that for a moment, then said, “I guess that means he is with you and he has woken up.”

_“Yep. I assume you calling means you’re no longer wherever you woke up?”_

“Barry’s house, yeah,” Len said with a sigh. “What house are you at?”

Lisa rattled off the familiar address for one of their safe houses across town. “Get here soon, Lenny,” she said. “Barry as you is even more annoying than you as you.”

Len smirked. “I’ll be there in a flash.”

* * *

“This is weird,” Barry said for the fourth time in as many minutes. But, in his defense, it _was_ weird. Here he was in Captain Cold’s body sitting across from Leonard Snart who was stuck in _his_ body and, oh good lord, his, or rather Snart’s, head hurt.

And he meant that in both a literal and figurative manner. Trying to wrap his head around the whole switching bodies thing was giving him an actual headache.

“I mean this is really, really—”

“Weird,” Snart finished. “Yes. So you’ve said.”

Barry frowned. It was weird and totally wrong to hear himself talk with such derisive levels of contempt. He was kind of offended to find out his voice was even capable of doing that. “Don’t talk like that with my voice,” he said. “It’s creepy.”

Snart scowled, the familiar expression looking out of place with Barry’s features but still somehow utterly recognizable as Captain Cold through and through. “Then don’t whine in mine,” he said. “It’s unbecoming.”

“Like you don’t whine,” Lisa said with a snort and Mick hummed beside her in apparent agreement. Snart shot her a withering look that lacked the usual level of heat on Barry’s face than it typically held. “Aww, your glare on that face is just downright adorable, Lenny.”

“So what’s our next move then?” Snart said, overly loud to drown out Lisa’s sniggers as he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “How do we figure out what happened? I don't know about you but waking up as speedster jailbait wasn’t exactly on my agenda for today.”

“I think,” Barry said slowly unsure how three known criminals would react to his proposal, “that we should head to STAR Labs. Caitlin and Cisco can help us figure this out.”

To his surprise the Snarts and Rory seemed all for the field trip.

* * *

The four of them probably made a very odd picture. Barry and Leonard and Mick and Lisa. A very weird picture indeed made all the weirder by the fact that Mick and Lisa were flanking what looked to be Barry rather than what looked to be Leonard. Barry, who looked like Leonard, was burrowed up in the coat Len had shoved at him before they left the safe house in spite of the speedster’s declarations that he wouldn’t need it. And Len, who looked like Barry, was feeling slightly overheated himself and thrumming with wild energy that was both invigorating and annoying; he hadn’t had this much trouble keeping still since he was twelve.

“Barry!” Dr. Snow exclaimed looking incredibly relieved and staring at Len.

So they didn’t know then, which made sense since they’d apparently sent Barry home to recover last night. Iris or Joe had probably called when Len stormed out earlier. Len pursed his lips, crossing his arms and taking comfort in the radiating presence of Mick and Lisa at his back. The good doctor and Lisa’s pet actually looked a little taken aback by Len’s overly defensive posture. Good.

Barry waved a sheepish hand. “Uh, actually Barry’s over here,” he said somehow managing to fold Len’s six-foot frame into something small and awkward and pathetic.

Len sneered and ignored Dr. Snow and Ramon’s shocked looks as he brushed past them and sauntered into the lab. He glanced over everything quickly, establishing a mental map of the area he could see and making note of anything interesting that caught his eye.

“Wha, what is going on?” Dr. Snow asked turning to track Len’s movements and also failing to direct her question at the actual Barry.

“Scarlet and I seem to be experiencing some peculiar effects,” Len drawled in response before Barry could say anything. “It appears that we’ve somehow managed to swap bodies.”

“Whoa,” Ramon said pointing at Len with a pinched look of distaste. “No, stop that, don’t do your creepy Cold drawl in Barry’s voice. It’s wrong.”

“That’s what I said!” Barry piped up and Len growled at the way he managed to make Len’s voice sound almost petulant.

“And I said to _stop_ _whining_ ,” he bit out twitching when Lisa pressed a hand to his shoulder gently. He settled though, not even bothering to pull out from under the touch when the usual pins and needles didn’t flare up. Well, he tolerated her touch longer than he generally would then slid away still finding the contact nearly as unbearable even pain free.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Snow said closing her eyes and shaking her head. “Did you say you swapped _bodies_?”

“Yeah, uh, I’m in Snart’s body and Snart’s in mine,” Barry said. “We think it has something to do with the—”

“Metahuman you two took on yesterday?” Ramon finished nodding and eyebrows drawing together in thought. “Makes sense. You know, about as much as any of this stuff with metas makes any sense. Hey, no, don’t touch that.”

Len snorted, but obligingly put the odd object he’d been inspecting down. He wasn't quite sure what it did anyway. After another second of consideration he deftly slipped it into his pocket; Mick would probably enjoy trying to puzzle it out.

“Uh, well, we should run some tests,” Dr. Snow said.

“And get some food,” Len added frowning as he finally placed the gnawing emptiness in his gut and glancing at Barry. “I’m starving.”

* * *

Barry groaned, shifting to try and find a more comfortable position on the exam table. He wasn’t sure a comfortable position existed though. No matter how he arranged Snart’s body something ached or twinged painfully.

“You okay, Barry?” Caitlin asked giving his arm a comforting squeeze.

Barry winced and brushed her hand off. “Yeah, just sore. You must have taken a beating yesterday,” he said glancing over at Snart who looked oddly confused at the comment. “You’re not injured are you?” Barry asked looking down at himself. “Do I need medical attention?”

“No,” Snart said cutting off Caitlin’s next words curtly. “No. I’m not…you’re fine.”

“Don’t feel fine,” Barry grumbled.

"Well, you are," Snart snapped. "That metahuman barely touched me. I'm good at staying out of the way. You on the other hand, I'm surprised you don't look like a Jackson Pollock painting."

Barry frowned. "A what?"

"Never mind." Snart rolled his eyes. "You're not all black and blue."

"Accelerated healing," Barry said with a proud smile as Snart arched a mildly impressed eyebrow. "Part of the heightened metabolism."

Snart stared down at his hands, wiggling the fingers thoughtfully. "Well, that's useful."

"Okay," Caitlin declared looking up from her tablet "That's every test I can think to run. You're both healthy far as I can figure. Barry's, I mean Snart's, well I guess they're still technically Barry's, vitals are all within normal range for Barry's body. And Barry, your heart rate is slightly elevated and your blood pressure is somewhat high, but neither are all that unexpected give the situation."

"So, aside from wearing each other, we're fine," Snart stated more than asked. "Good to know. Now, what about the body swapping issue?"

Caitlin frowned, glancing at Barry before drawing herself up to her full height and responding primly, "Cisco and I are working on it. In the meantime you and Barry should remain here in case any adverse effects make themselves known."

"You should know I don't sit still well," Snart drawled leaning back against the table with crossed arms. "And I tend to get sticky fingers if left to my own devices."

Caitlin's frown deepened as she gathered her things. "I'm sure Barry can entertain you," she said then swept from the room before Barry could protest being put on Snartwatch.

He sighed heavily, gingerly rolling his aching shoulder as Snart stared after Caitlin with a vaguely perturbed yet considering expression. His shoulder throbbed, and Snart clucked his tongue apparently deciding not to do whatever he'd been contemplating. Barry wondered if he regretted sending Lisa and Mick away earlier—a task that had been comprised of several glowering eyebrows, strong words, and a multitude of threats—but he seemed content to begin flitting around the room with short almost unnoticeable bursts of speed as he rummaged through drawers and flipped through various books. Barry watched him for several minutes, rubbing absently at his shoulder and trying to decide if Snart even realized what he was doing; he seemed to slow down every time he consciously decided to do something only speeding up when something new caught his attention.

“Are you always in this much pain?” Barry asked abruptly still trying to massage the ache from his shoulder. At first he’d thought it was just aches and pains from the fight with the metahuman in spite of Snart's assertion otherwise. After all he’d had his accelerated healing long enough that it was plain weird to hurt at all for an extended period of time, so he'd given Len's body the benefit of the doubt. Caitlin's cursory check over his torso, Snart’s torso, though had proved there were only a small smattering of bruises on his right side that _barely hurt at all_. The main culprits of the aches seemed to be bone deep in his right shoulder and elbow and left leg and knee. Also, the scars were just damn uncomfortable, skin pulling tight and taunt every time he so much as shifted.

“Stop rubbing at it,” Snart grunted pushing the drawer he'd been digging through shut and slipping something in his pocket. Barry made the executive decision to not care at the moment. “You’ll just make it worse.”

“Well, what do you do to help then?” Barry whined falling back to the table with a thud. Which was a _mistake_. “Ow.”

Snart sighed, heavy and put upon, then his hands were blurring together faster than the naked eye could see and in the next second they were delving under Barry’s sweatshirt to press directly against his shoulder.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he yelped drawing away before the heat registered and the dull ache eased just a bit. “Oh, that…that feels nice.”

Snart let his hands rest on Barry’s just long enough for the pins and needles that seemed to accompany any contact to begin to make themselves known before drawing away and gently readjusting the collar of the sweatshirt so it rested a bit more comfortably against Barry’s neck.

"Thanks," Barry said.

“Quid pro quo, kid,” Snart said gruffly in lieu of actually responding and goodness that was still weird to hear from his own mouth to a body that was years his senior. “Is there a kitchen in here? Apparently no one heard me the first time when I said I was starving. Of course then I was exaggerating a bit. Now I do actually believe I’m starving. Are you always this hungry?”

Barry laughed, surprised at the almost pleasant sound that rumbled up from his chest as he slid off the table. “Yeah, I'm pretty much a bottomless pit. Follow me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be up, uh, soonish. 
> 
> If you want, you can follow me on [tumblr](http://little-red-and-his-wolves.tumblr.com).


	2. Hyperalgesia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonard Snart and Barry Allen swap bodies and learn something new about one another in the process. Len had forgotten what it felt like to not be in pain and Barry gets a reminder of what it was like before he got his speed. It's a fun few days for all involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe I thought Caitlin was a doctor before writing this chapter? Like a medical doctor, a Dr. House doctor, a regular Dr. John Dorian doctor. I actually feel kind of like I betrayed her character when I realized she's a biomedical engineer. Then again, I totally spelled her name wrong all through the first chapter so, yeah, I really failed on that one.

**Central Sensitization: _Hyperalgesia_**

So it turned out that the good doctor and the flighty kid didn't know how to fix them. All that supposed brainpower and higher education, and the best they could come up with was, "Wait and see if it reverses on its own."

They assured Barry, and by extension Leonard, that they'd keep working on it, but in the meantime thought it was best if Len and Barry stayed at the labs for their own safety. Which, of course, meant they didn't want Barry arrested for wearing Len's face or Len soiling Barry's good name by using his speedster abilities for more nefarious purposes. Leonard would almost be insulted if he hadn't actually considered it.

That had been a week ago. Which was how Len found himself an unhappy semi-permanent guest of STAR Labs and Barry found himself down with a sudden case of "Mad Cow" or, as Ramon put it to Dr. Snow, "Something good that sounds like it'll keep him ill for a couple weeks but isn't, like, fatal or anything."

And in spite of Scarlet and Co. stating loudly and empathetically that Len was not their prisoner every time he so much as let out an aggrieved sigh, Len was starting to feel a bit like he was in prison. Worse, actually. At least in Iron Heights he'd gotten yard time.

Barry didn't see the similarities, but then he'd never been on the orange side of the prison cell. It boiled down to this: Len wasn't allowed to leave, Lisa and Mick had to come visit him and they were _supervised_ , there were restricted areas of the lab where Len was most definitely not allowed to go which he mostly ignored anyway, and he had an annoying cellmate. In Leonard's opinion it was exactly like prison. He and Barry may have argued about it. Extensively.

The thing was though, Len was starting to feel antsy. His kind of antsy, not the ever-present hum of energy that seemed settled perpetually beneath Barry's skin. No, this was a soul deep shake made all the worse by his new found restlessness. Barry suggested exercise, incorrectly assuming Len's fidgeting stemmed from being in Barry's body instead of having been stuck inside and around people he didn't entirely trust for the past seven days.

If anything exercise made it worse, the shaky feeling morphing into an all out gnawing pit that twisted and writhed among his insides. For the first time since being Barry he actually felt uncomfortable, felt something familiar. He didn't like it, the way his own nervous energy played off Barry's restlessness until he felt like a rubber band drawn tight and ready to snap at the slightest provocation.

And snap he did all over Mick and Lisa at one of their supervised visits, spewing scathing insults and angry words, riling them both up until they left, Lisa with a veiled look of concern and Mick grumbling for Len to get his head out of his ass. Ramon, that visit's supervisor, looked legitimately shocked. Whether he was shocked Len finally went ballistic or just shocked that Barry’s voice was actually capable of deepening into something that approximated an all out snarl, Len didn't care.

He didn't care about much except for the twisting and clenching feeling in his chest that wouldn't go away or the fact that exactly zero of his tried and true methods for making it stop were working. And even though it brought up loads of interesting questions concerning physical and psychological ailments, Len couldn't help but feel a little bitter as he shut himself in a closet and shook apart in a way he hadn't in over a month. In Barry's body his heart felt like it might literally pound through his chest at a million beats per second, lungs seizing from the lack of air, and Len wasn't sure if the tingling in his hands was related or due to the fact that he was practically vibrating in place.

Barry found him a little while later, joining him wordlessly on the floor even if he grimaced on his way down, sitting not too close but also not that far away. It was a pretty small closet.

Barry didn't touch him, just sat down and talked all low and gentle like Len was some kind of spooked deer who could flee at any given moment. Given that Len actually could right now he figured maybe Barry wasn't so far off base with his tone.

There was something inherently weird about being soothed with his own voice even if it lacked his distinctive drawl but, in the end, it worked.

* * *

"So," Barry said for lack of any better opening after sitting in the closet silent far too long. "I wouldn't have pegged you as someone to have panic attacks."

Snart growled but otherwise didn't lift his head mumbling, "Fuck off, Scarlet."

He made quite the pitiful picture, curled up as small as he could go and tucked back between the shelves with his knees drawn up and face buried in his arms. All Barry could really see was the disheveled mop of hair and the tense line of his shoulders, which, Barry was pleased to note, were still noticeably more relaxed than they had been minutes before.

"There's no reason to be mean, Snart," he said keeping his tone perfectly bland. Neither judgmental nor pitying. "It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed," Snart snarled lifting his head just enough to glare at Barry; it was almost terrifying to see such animosity twisted over his own features. Snart's breath caught when he tried to inhale and for a moment something like fear flickered over his face as he pressed one shaking hand to his chest.

"Hey, just, uh..." Barry started trailing off when Snart shot him another withering glare.

"I swear, Scarlet, if you tell me to calm down," Snart wheezed sounding entirely unthreatening even if his eyes promised physical agony, "I'll punch you in the face."

Barry clicked his mouth shut wisely keeping to himself how counterproductive such action would be towards Snart's own wellbeing as Snart once again buried his head in his arms taking shallow, shuddering breaths. "Take me outside," Barry said, the idea coming to him suddenly.

Snart stared back at him, breathing hard as if he been running for hours and apparently thrown by Barry's suggestion. "What?"

"Flash us outside," Barry repeated. "You broke out of Iron Heights multiple times so I know you know the code to leave even if Cisco has it on a rotation, which means the only reason you haven't is because we asked you not to. But I'm telling you now to take me outside."

There was barely any warning beyond a slight gleam in Snart's eyes. One moment Barry was kneeling on the floor of a storage closet, the next he was whirling through the speed force with the air fleeing from his lungs and muscles screaming in protest, and the next he was stumbling to the ground outside fighting the urge to puke.

"Oh my God," Barry moaned dropping his head against the ground and sucking in several deep pulls of air. "Is this what it always feels like for other people?" He didn't think so, someone would have told him.

"I think it's mild motion sickness," Snart said and it sounded like he was at least breathing again. "Just breathe through it."

"Motion sickness?" Barry repeated twisting his head to the side to peer up at Snart through narrowed eyes as another nauseating wave of pain rolled over him. The other man was standing several feet away, face tipped up to the sky and eyes closed looking entirely peaceful even if Barry could still see tremors running through him.

"You call this motion sickness?” he said vindictively wanting to interrupt whatever serenity Snart had found, “I think I'm gonna puke." Which was unfortunate because every muscle seemed to be screaming him at the moment and he really didn't want to go through the ordeal of vomiting.

Again he felt himself move faster than he was currently capable of, going from face first in the dirt to sat on his rear with his knees drawn up, arms drawn forward, and head pressed between his knees. Snart's hand didn't linger for more than a few seconds on the back of Barry's neck and then he was ordering Barry to take deep breaths, dictating the timing of inhales and exhales.

"Used to get sick in cars all the time when I was a kid," Snart said eventually as Barry focused carefully on breathing, relieved to feel the nausea abate little by little. "Don't bother me much anymore unless it's a long ride or exceptionally rough. Trips with you though, not really any fun, but they're not that bad."

"You have a funny definition of not bad," Barry said when he felt like he wouldn't puke just from opening his mouth.

Snart grunted. "Or maybe you're just a wimp."

"Well, thanks anyway," Barry said in lieu of a response to the barb. He felt rather than saw Snart shift uncomfortably beside him.

"You're welcome," was Snart’s stiff reply.

For some reason Barry thought it sounded a lot like a thank you.

* * *

Len pulled in a deep breath welcoming the fresh air and the unimpeded sky far above him. He’d never been one for the outdoorsy stuff, had always liked to be outside in the city but had never really been fond woods and fields. He’d complained up and down when Mick had dragged him camping once when they were both barely more than teenagers. He’d bitched and moaned enough about being cold and the hard ground that the other man had never asked him to go again.

He had a new appreciation for the trees now, however, after being cooped up inside for so long. Len might even take Mick camping once he got his body back to celebrate. As long as they went somewhere warm and Len brought along a comfortable air mattress or cot because he was too fucking old to sleep on the ground anymore. On second thought maybe he’d just take Mick on vacation to the Bahamas or something. Jamaica might be a better choice. Or somewhere without extradition so they could enjoy the time worry free. If they went anywhere with a beach though he’d have to invite Lisa along or she’d bitch about being left out.

“Are you ready to head back?” Barry asked softly and Len scowled almost having forgotten the little bastard was even here with him.

“You eager to get back to our prison there, Barry?” he asked closing his eyes and relishing in the gentle breeze wafting over him.

Barry sighed. “I told you, you’re not a prisoner. I didn’t realize you liked the outdoors so much.”

“I don’t,” Len drawled smirking when he could almost feel Barry’s confusion. He turned his head, squinting over at the other man perched on a tree stump a few feet away. “I just don’t like being confined in small spaces.”

“STAR Labs isn’t exactly small,” Barry pointed out, and Len cocked his head to the side.

“It is when you can’t leave.”

Barry sighed again, rising to his feet and dusting off his pants. “Duly noted. You want to go outside, I’m sure we can work something out. Now come on, we should be getting back before Caitlin and Cisco start thinking you kidnapped me,” he said crossing the clearing to offer Len a hand up.

Len eyed his hand for a moment before rolling to his feet without taking it. Barry looked vaguely offended. Len wondered if he realized how likely it was that Len would have hurt his shoulder pulling on his arm like that. Really, Len did him a favor.

“I guess you’ll have to flash us back,” Barry said wiping his hand on the front of his coat nervously. “We’re pretty far out.”

“I guess so,” Len said eyes narrowing as Barry swallowed and shuffled his feet dropping his gaze to the ground for a moment before glancing back up.

Something in Len softened at the apprehensive look on Barry’s face even if part of him despised seeing that expression on his own face. He stepped in close pushing down his own unease to wrap a secure arm around Barry’s waist and another around his shoulders. This near he could tell that while he may have a few pounds on the speedster and was definitely broader across the shoulders Barry actually had an inch or two on him in height.

Barry exhaled heavily arms wrapping around Len and gripping tight. Len shifted uncomfortably, hyperaware of the pressure from Barry’s fingers digging deep into the muscles of his back. He tightened his own grip just a little, taking a measured breath and summoning up that ever-present hum of energy running through him.

“Take a deep breath, Scarlet,” he murmured feeling the vibrations ripple through him. “And hold on tight.”

* * *

By the end of week two Barry felt he and Snart had settled into an odd kind of routine.

Finding Snart hiding in a closet had been a wake up call that the other man wasn't coping quite as well as he pretended. It was kind of a relief to know that Barry wasn't the only one struggling and experiencing negative side effects to the body swap. It was also a sign that, for the foreseeable future, they needed a better system to deal with the repercussions of living in each other's bodies.

So Barry had redoubled his efforts. He made sure he ate and he made sure Snart slept. He made sure he exercised and made sure Snart took some downtime. He made sure that they both got fresh air to help him combat the persistent sense sorrow that hung over him oddly and to help Snart combat his restlessness that seemed to only ease when they were outside of the labs.

Every night they played cards. Snart beat him ninety-nine percent of the time; Barry was sixty-three percent sure he cheated.

Every evening they went for a walk outside. Barry had a hard time keeping up and always seemed to end up with a slight limp while Snart seemed to struggle with the urge to just take off.

Every afternoon they exercised. Snart jogged endlessly on the treadmill while Barry worked through the motions Snart had shown him without any real explanation. They weren’t really exercise, if anything they reminded Barry of physical therapy, but they seemed to help with the persistent aches. Snart harped on him mercilessly if Barry tried to skip any of them.

And every morning they started the day off right—with breakfast.

Barry had quickly learned Snart, body or mind, was not one for mornings. Snart's body seemed exceedingly displeased whenever Barry got up before ten o'clock, and Snart was always irritable as hell until he had at least one cup of coffee, perpetually protesting it seemed, Barry's body's natural inclination to rise early.

Barry padded quietly into the kitchen not even bothering to greet Snart who was slumped over his coffee mug like some sort of dozing dragon hoarding a treasure. He pulled open the fridge digging out some bread and eggs for breakfast before grasping the full pitcher of orange juice from the door’s lower shelf. His shoulder flared in pain when he picked it up prompting a hiss as the pitcher wavered dangerously close to spilling or being dropped.

Snart was there in a blink of an eye, grabbing the pitcher before Barry could completely drop it. “Don’t pick heavy things up with that arm, dumbass,” he muttered still sounding half asleep. “Haven’t you figured that out?”

“Forgot,” Barry gasped, breathing carefully though the pain as Snart set the pitcher aside. “You know, I’m beginning to think you were lying about me being okay the other week. What the hell did you do to your arm?”

Snart drained the last of his coffee immediately refilling it and scrubbing a hand over his face. “Nothing. The muscles in my right shoulder are significantly weaker than typical,” he said clinically as he retrieved a glass and poured Barry a glass of orange juice. “And the joint is prone to overextension. You just stressed it. The pain should die down in a bit.”

Barry screwed his face up in confusion. He never would have guessed such a thing given how competently Snart seemed to move in his own body, but now that he thought about it Snart had a very particular way of moving that Barry had always taken as excessive self-control rather than a necessary method of motion to avoid pain. “Why is it so weak?”

“Because that’s what tends to happen when your shoulder is dislocated seven times by the time you’re eighteen,” Snart said wryly over the rim of his mug before rolling his eyes like Barry was a particular kind of stupid.

“How in the world did you manage that?” Barry asked before he could catch himself. He winced as Snart arched a condescending eyebrow.

“I fell down the stairs,” Snart drawled, and both he and Barry were well aware of what that meant.

“That was, I mean, I don’t,” Barry paused taking a deep breath and gathering his thoughts. “That was insensitive. I’m sorry.”

Snart shrugged stuffing a piece of bread into his mouth. “Don’t apologize for curiosity,” he said words muffled around his full mouth.

Barry pulled in a careful breath. “Can I ask about your leg then?”

Snart stilled and raised his eyebrow again before chewing aggressively at his bread.

“Your left hip is kind of always killing me,” Barry clarified, “and if I don’t compensate right when I stand up your knee has a tendency to buckle on me.”

Snart grunted and swallowed. "Car crash," he said vaguely.

Barry raised a single brow. "Really, Snart?"

"Fine," Snart said rolling his eyes again. "My dad pushed me off a roof. Wrenched my knee and broke my hip. Never quite healed right. Happy?"

"Your dad pushed you off a roof," Barry repeated feeling a little shell-shocked just hearing the words.

Snart shrugged. "This is the same man who stuck a bomb in Lisa's head. I dunno why you seem so surprised that he'd shove me off a roof if it made a good distraction."

"Elbow?"

"That one was my fault actually," Snart said huffing when Barry shot him a skeptical look. "Not every injury comes with a tragic backstory, kid. I broke it when I fell two stories trying to scale the side of a building I'd just stolen three Japanese jade elephants from. Broke one of the elephants too." He frowned lightly, then shrugged. "I was more upset about the elephant than my elbow."

“I will never understand you, Snart. So what about your toes then?” Barry asked.

Snart paused, coffee half raised to his lips before being lowered back to the counter. “Scarlet, if you’re gonna ask me questions like that while wearing my face the least you could do is stop calling me by my surname,” he said.

Barry swallowed. Clearly he'd tread onto a sensitive subject without meaning to; story of his life. “So what do you want me to call you? Cold? Leonard? Leo?”

“No,” Snart said shaking his head and giving an exaggerated shudder. “No, just…just Len is fine.”

“So what happened to your toes, Len?”

Len worried at his lower lip for a long moment moving to the cupboard to pull out a skillet and Barry thought he might not answer. “It was a lesson,” he eventually said flashing first to the stove and then to the fridge for butter.

“A lesson,” Barry repeated aghast at the very idea and thinking back to what Lisa had said months ago. “For _what_?”

“To move,” Len said clearing his throat roughly, dumping some butter in the pan and turning the heat to high. “Quicker than I used to. To always be a few steps ahead.”

"Your _dad_ cut off your toes," Barry said incapable of even beginning to comprehend. "I can't even—"

Len drew his brows together in confusion glancing first at Barry then the melting butter. "Who said anything about my dad?"

"Oh, I just assumed," Barry stammered pausing a moment before continuing. "Then who?"

Len smiled over his shoulder, his signature derisive grin looking grimly out of place on Barry's face. "People in prison can be so touchy," he drawled and the bottom of Barry's stomach dropped out.

"What?" Barry said faintly.

Len gave him a quizzical look. "Couple guys jumped me in Iron Heights," he said cracking a few eggs into the pan; they hit the hot butter with a sizzle, popping happily and flooding the room with a stomach turning aroma. "Family. Tryin' to teach me a lesson. Don't think I learned the one they wanted me to."

"Oh my God, did you report them?"

"Really, Barry?" Len asked exasperated, spatula tapping a staccato rhythm against the counter. "Of course not. Do you think I'm suicidal?"

"But they assaulted you!" Barry exclaimed.

Len snorted. "Not the worst thing to happen in Iron Heights," he said in a tone that implied he thought it entirely practical to not report intentional bodily harm done to his person. "And not the worst thing to have happened to me though it ranks up there pretty high."

Barry's stomach soured further. "That's not the point."

"It's sweet, Scarlet, really. I'm touched you're so concerned about my honor—"

"That isn't something you should let people get away with," Barry said.

Len grinned, sharp and frightening. "I never said I let them get away with it."

Barry clicked his mouth shut processing that. Oh. "What did you do?"

"Let's just say they're all potentially missing things a little more important than toes," Len said, a thin note of satisfaction bleeding into his words. "And that while I learned to be a little quicker on my feet, _they_ learned not to mess with me or mine."

* * *

“What strings did you pull to get them to let us out here?” Lisa asked reclining on the lounge seat and arching one brow pointedly in Len’s direction.

Len arched a brow right back. “What makes you think I had to pull any strings?”

“Ah, because the first six times we came to visit you were locked inside like a prisoner,” Lisa said. “And now were sitting on the roof. All by ourselves might I add. Where’s your watch dog for the day?”

Len rolled his eyes slouching back in his chair and enjoying the fact that he could do so comfortably. He closed his eyes basking in the warm sunlight that made the chilled air bearable and humming in response. “Maybe they’ve finally decided to trust me,” he said and beside him Mick harrumphed while Lisa just chuckled.

“I doubt that.”

“Haven’t you learned yet, Mick,” Len drawled, “I always get what I want.”

Mick didn’t respond to that, at least not verbally, and Len peeked one eye open to glance at his partner. Mick was just staring at him in that absurdly perceptive way of his that never failed to make Len feel like he was sitting buck naked with all his issues flapping out in the wind.

“What?” he asked sourly, slouching even further and bouncing his leg to burn off some of the building nervous energy. Mick just continued staring at him and Len huffed, resolutely closed his eyes. He was going to enjoy his few hours free on the roof, damnit, even if Mick wanted to stare at him like some goddamn weirdo.

Something heavy landed on his knee abruptly stilling his motion and Len jolted, eyes flying open to glare at Mick and his offending hand. Mick met his gaze, keeping his hand on Len’s knee and leaning forward to ask quietly, “Are you okay?”

Len cut his gaze towards Lisa, stretched languidly over her lounge seat and practically purring in the sunlight. She looked completely unconcerned with the both of them, head tipped back and eyes closed as she tapped out some rhythm or another on her armrests and hummed quietly along.

“I’m fine,” he said eventually shoving Mick’s hand off his leg. “Never been better.”

“Odd answer,” Mick observed. “Considering your currently wearing someone else. Reconsidering your plan to steal his body? His speed could be very useful.”

Len smirked gesturing to Barry’s body with his hands. “And if I was?” he asked adding a wink in for good measure. “Are you worried you won’t like the newer model?”

Mick just hummed one hand delving into his pocket to withdraw his lighter and beginning to flick the cap open and shut absently. “I prefer the real you,” he rumbled.

Len swallowed turning his gaze away from Mick and looking up into the sky. The bright sunlight hurt even Barry’s young eyes, making him squint and see spots. “Yeah, well, the good doctors aren’t even sure they can figure out how to fix us,” he said ignoring the twist in his gut as he uttered the words. “So it might be awhile.”

Mick was silent a moment the only sounds on the rooftop Lisa’s low humming and the measured clinking of Mick’s lighter as Len took and released careful breaths, then quietly with all the conviction in the world, “The squints will figure it out, boss. Just gotta be patient.”

* * *

It took Barry crying twice for no discernible reason and a few days of literally having to drag himself out of bed when he had no desire to do so for him to consider there might be something more wrong than the expected level of discontent from losing his own body. At first he outright dismissed the fleeting idea but after a few more days of feeling like an oppressive black cloud was hanging over his head and like the steel band around his chest was cinching tighter and tighter he had to reconsider.

“I’m sorry, what?” Caitlin asked shaking her head like what Barry had just said didn’t quite compute. To be fair, Barry’s initial reaction had been similar.

“I think Snart’s depressed,” he repeated.

Caitlin nodded slowly. “Like, uh, actual Snart or you-Snart?”

“Actual Snart,” Barry said then frowned. “Or me-Snart? Which one is which?”

“Do you feel depressed?” Caitlin asked brows creased seriously in concern. “Or do you think he’s feeling depressed?”

“Me,” Barry answered now confident that he knew which one they were talking about. “But I think it’s him and not me. Like, I feel depressed, but I feel like it’s all…distant? Like there’s nothing for me to be depressed about but I still feel sad? Does that make sense? It doesn’t, does it?”

“Actually it does,” Caitlin said. “Depression is often linked to brain chemistry. You currently have Snart’s brain, ergo, if he’s depressed then you are.”

Barry huffed. “So not only do I get all his physical ailments, now I have to deal with his psychological ones too?”

“It seems so,” Caitlin said laying a soft hand on Barry’s arm and frowning faintly. “We could look into medications, but without knowing if Snart was taking anything before or whether or not he wants or needs to take anything when he’s actually himself I’d be really hesitant to try anything.”

“No,” Barry said hoping to ease the concern creasing her brows. “It’s fine. Really. I just…feel really sad. But it’s okay, I can deal.”

“You know, Barry, if you ever want to talk—”

Barry offered her a small grateful smile. “Thanks, Caitlin, but I’m really fine. It’s weird though,” he said.

“What is?”

“I have his brain,” Barry said tapping his temple. “And he has mine. Presumably. But we both also have our own memories and all that stuff that makes us…us. Is this scientific proof of the soul?”

Caitlin grinned, cocking her head to the side as she considered it. “You two swapped bodies somehow. You’re a scientific precedent, and clearly we don’t really understand how it happened. But, yes, it’s quite interesting that while it appears none of your organs, including your brains, were swapped you’re both still yourselves. It’s fascinating.”

Barry rolled his eyes, nudging her shoulder playfully. “Speak for yourself,” he said. “At least you’re not wearing a criminal.”

“Cisco and I are working on it,” Caitlin said reassuringly. “We’ll figure it out. You know, eventually.”

Barry chuckled. “I know. Just try to do it before I die of old age, okay? I’m not as young as I used to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot? What plot? There is no plot. They swapped bodies and hang out for two chapters before I pull a random explanation of how the switch back out of my ass and shout, "The end!" Still have one more chapter to go though.
> 
> Also...I may or may not be on a Prison Break binge which explains the nearly ridiculous amount of references I'm making here. I have no shame.


	3. Allodynia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonard Snart and Barry Allen swap bodies and learn something new about one another in the process. Len had forgotten what it felt like to not be in pain and Barry gets a reminder of what it was like before he got his speed. It's a fun few days for all involved.

**Chapter Three:** _Allodynia_

“I have not seen you eat this much at one time in…years,” Lisa remarked sounding half in awe as Len started in on his eighth slice of pizza.

Len rolled his eyes and mumbled around his pizza, “I’m hungry, so sue me.”

Lisa didn’t chuckle like Len thought she would, just worried at her lower lip and glanced at Mick. When Len followed her gaze, his slice of pizza halfway to his mouth again, he found Mick staring at him the same way. It left him feeling a little uncomfortable, but not wholly disconcerted.

“What?” he asked genuinely confused by the looks he was receiving. If anything his question made it worse, Lisa drawing her brows together and Mick’s frown deepening almost beyond what Len thought him capable of.

“You’re acting…weird,” Mick said eventually.

“Weird,” Len repeated like drawing the word in question out would help it make more sense.

“Not like yourself,” Lisa clarified.

Len dropped his gaze to the pizza in his hand, then further to what he could see of his chest and legs, before looking back to his sister. “If you haven’t noticed, Lisa,” he said slowly. “I’m kind of not myself right now. Thank you for reminding me.”

“That’s not what she meant,” Mick said and he and Lisa shared a significant look that would have once made Len’s skin crawl but now just caused the faintest rise in confusion.

“A couple weeks ago,” Lisa said slowly, “when you’d just switched? You were still you. But now, I don’t know, it’s like your acting more like Barry.”

Len set his pizza down, not quite hungry anymore.

“And it’s not just you,” Lisa added shifting forward. “Last time we were here Barry about bit my head off when I bumped into him. I mean, he sounded _just_ like you. For a second I thought they’d managed to switch you back and you were just being a dick about it.”

Len curled his hand, fingers feeling oddly numb and cold like the hole steadily growing in his chest. He pulled in a careful breath surprised when his lungs cooperated without complaint. Barry’s lungs, he corrected himself, they weren’t his.

“Lenny?”

Fuck, now Lisa sounded worried and scared. To be fair it had been awhile since she saw him have a panic attack. Len may have lied once and told her he didn’t get them anymore. Mick knew better though; had seen more than his fair share of Leonard Snart meltdowns in the wee hours of the morning or behind closed doors after jobs that had been two steps away from disaster.

“Len,” Mick said, his hand a warm and reassuring weight on Len’s arm. It didn’t feel _right_ though. Didn’t feel like Mick, didn’t feel like _Len_.

He stood up, chair screeching back from his abrupt motion. “I’m fine,” he heard himself saying. “Really. It’s just…it’s late. I have to go. You should go too. Sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The look on Lisa’s face was incredulous. It wasn’t hard to figure out why, but Len didn’t hang back or try to correct himself and say something more _Len-like_. He didn’t give them the chance to chase after him either, tapping into Barry’s super speed and flashing down to the lab.

Dr. Snow actually yelped in surprise when Len appeared in front of her, throwing a file of papers over her head before gathering her composure. She opened her mouth primly, probably with the intent to tell him off for scaring her like that, but then her eyes soften and something like concern washed over her features. “Are you okay?”

It took a second for Len to realize his chest was heaving and it likely wasn’t from the running. “You need to fix us,” he said instead of answering her question. And, besides, it technically was an answer. He wasn’t okay, not by a long shot.

“Okay,” Snow said holding her hands out like he was some spooked ally-cat about to either claw off her face or run away with his tail tucked between his legs based on whether or not he felt cornered. “I’m working on it. _We’re_ working on it. You just have to be patient.”

Len reached out faster than the human eye could see and grabbed her wrists pulling her in closer. “No,” he growled. “You need to fix us _now_.”

Dr. Snow shook her head, pulling back helplessly and twisting her wrists in Len’s grip. “I, I don’t know how,” she cried. “I’m trying, okay? I am. Just…let go, please. You’re hurting me.”

The furtive glance she gave to the left was Len’s only warning. He wasn’t entirely surprised when someone grabbed his shoulder to wrench him around and spent only the barest second being thankful that it wasn’t really _his_ shoulder. He also wasn’t entirely surprised to Barry, features twisted into an angry scowl that looked a whole hell of a lot like what Lisa and Mick liked to call his angry bitchface.

Barry dragged him bodily from the room, one hand in a vice grip around Len’s bicep, and threw him into a wall as soon as they were out of the room. Len coughed, breath knocked out of him by the force of the shove. Oddly enough, not being able to breathe easily seemed to settle something inside him.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Len?” Barry said fingers clasped tight around Len’s wrists. “We let you stay here, let you have all the freedom you want, and you go and scare Caitlin like that? What do you think you were doing?” he demanded clenching his fingers around Len’s wrists hard enough it felt like his bones were grinding together, and it didn’t hurt. Not like it was supposed to. It didn’t cause that choked feeling to well up inside him, it didn’t send his sympathetic nervous system into overdrive, and it was wrong, all of it was wrong.

Len tried to shove Barry away, harder than probably advised, and regret spiked through him at the flash of pain across Barry’s features. His features, it was _his_ face, damnit, and he didn’t know when thinking of it as Barry’s stopped feeling weird.

“What if there’s a time limit?” he asked twisting his hands to hold onto Barry’s arms and again noting the expression of discomfort on Barry’s face at the contact. “A window of opportunity where we can be switched back? And it’s steadily closing and soon we’ll have missed it? What if we’ve _already_ missed it? What if we’re stuck like this?”

“Len—”

“I mean, do you really want to be stuck in my body forever?” Len said, strain on his voice ticking up ever so slightly. “I don’t think so!”

Another muted expression flickered across Barry’s face, hard to catch and hard to read. Nothing like the open book the kid usually was.

“And I don’t want to be you,” Len admitted sagging against the wall. Just the idea of spending the rest of his life in Barry’s body sent an arc of despair racing through him, a sense of loss that didn’t fully make sense but was somehow there all the same.

Barry shifted in front him grip loosening around Len’s wrists and eventually disappearing altogether. “Do you mind if I ask why?”

“What do you mean?” Len said leaning against the wall like it was the only thing holding him up. There was an old familiar feeling building in his chest, one that felt like a black hole and consumed him from the inside out. “You want your body back, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Barry said sounding a bit uncomfortable, “but mine’s not…”

“Old, broken, and a source of constant pain?” Len finished for him swallowing down a sardonic laugh before it could make him sound even crazier than he felt.

Barry winced but nodded. “Yeah. That.”

“Because it’s mine.”

* * *

It was an odd thing to feel guilty about, but Barry did. Feel guilty, that is, about what he was doing. It was an odd invasion of privacy, somehow even more awkward than the first time Barry had gone to the bathroom or taken a shower in Len’s body. He hadn’t paid the marks scattered over his body much attention up to this point. Although Len had freely answered most of Barry’s questions about his old injuries there were things he’d been vague on or outright avoided.

Standing half naked in front of a body mirror and just cataloging all the visible remainders of past hurts, it just felt wrong. But Len’s words were still ringing in his mind. Len’s simple reason for wanting this body back— _because it was his_. And Barry doesn’t really know when he stopped being surprised by the face that greeted him when he glanced in a mirror or when he stopped stumbling over calling the body he now possessed his.

Barry twisted around, knitting his brows together at the small circular scars scattered over Len’s back. Cigarette burns, thirty-four of them. There was a larger burn scar over his right shoulder blade and a thinner jagged scar about an inch and a half in length just below the bottom of his ribcage. Barry didn’t know the story for that one, but it certainly looked like someone had literally stabbed the man in the back. For a moment Barry tried to imagine the sharp pain that might result from a wound like that; winced and pushed it from his mind once he considered whether or not the blade had been long enough to hit a lung.

Len’s front was peppered with scars as well. A few more cigarette burns along his collar bone. Another small but thick scar on his lower abdomen, a weird half-square one on the upper right of his ribcage that had puzzled Barry until Len had filled him in on the story about his father with the belt buckle, one round and slightly puckered scar from a gunshot on his left shoulder and another just above his right hip, and a small, nearly unnoticeable scar above his left eye. What were probably defensive wounds traced across the back of his forearms, some scars thin and faint while others were jagged and thick, indicative of injuries sustained by Len trying to protect his face.

The worst, though, were Len’s thighs, the back of which were covered in thin and overlapping scars that had taken Barry awhile to figure out. Len had fallen silent before deftly switching the subject the one time Barry had asked. It had taken a few days of contemplation before Barry realized they came a whip or a switch; he still wasn’t sure which. The inside of Len’s thighs bore similar scars, and at first Barry hadn’t given much thought to whether or not they had a different cause. Eventually, though, it had dawned on him that the placement was awkward and the scars were slightly different, most running parallel to one another but more than a few crisscrossing deliberately. It was obvious then and made Barry feel sick to his stomach.

Wearing boxers like he was made it impossible to see the numerous scars decorating the soft skin of Len’s thighs but even just knowing they were there fanned a simmering flame of anger at the numerous people in Len’s life who had hurt him. Provoked or not the amount of violence Len had been on the receiving end for practically his whole life was devastating. Barry found he couldn’t really fault the man Len had grown into when he considered the childhood Len must have had. Len had been playing a rigged game that started the first time his father raised a hand to him and put out a cigarette against his skin.

And those were only the marks Barry could see, countless others hid beneath Len’s skin and in his mind. The stiff joints, persistent aches, and mental trauma that was simultaneously impacting not only Barry as Len but also Len as Barry. It was mindboggling and soul crushing.

“Hey, Barry? You in there?” Len called knocking softly on the door.

Barry jumped—his likelihood of being startled by abrupt sounds had quadrupled since being dumped in Len’s body and he wasn’t sure if that was a Len-thing or not but it still sucked—quickly grabbing one of his STAR hoodies and tugging it on. “Yeah, uh, come in!” he called pulling the hood off his head when it got caught and pushing the slightly too long sleeves up.

“God,” Len said wrinkling his nose as soon as he stepped in. “Put some pants on.”

“It’s your body,” Barry reminded him even as he obligingly reached for a pair of sweatpants. “Not like you haven’t seen it before.”

“Doesn’t make it any less awkward to talk a partially clothed man,” Len shot back snidely. “The fact that it’s my body just makes me want you to put pants on even more.”

“You have problems,” Barry muttered overbalancing and having to catch himself on the wall to keep from falling over when he got his foot caught in a pant leg.

Len scowled but otherwise didn’t respond, just fidgeted awkwardly by the door while Barry fought with and eventually triumphed over the sweatpants. He turned to grab a pair of socks from behind him, alerted to Len’s motion only by a faint shift in the air and a sudden icy sense of danger slithering over the nape of his neck.

Barry flinched back, the edge of the dresser digging painfully into his hip. Len didn’t step away as he usually did, always making sure there were at least six inches of space between them, instead taking another step closer and crowded Barry into the corner. His eyes flickered over Barry’s face, keen and calculating with no trace of malice, but Barry’s heart kicked up anyway. Thundered away in his chest painfully as adrenaline thrummed through him and sweat pooled in the small of his back.

He wanted to ask Len what he was doing, but the words stuck in his throat, and he swallowed roughly in an effort to dislodge them.

“Lisa was right,” Len said quietly before finally, blessedly, taking a step away.

The vise around Barry’s chest loosed a bit and he took a careful breath just realizing he’d raised his arms protectively across his torso. He lowered them awkwardly, knuckles aching where they were clenched around his socks. “Right about what?” he asked surprised by the shakiness evident in his voice.

Len took another step something like regret washing over his features. “That shouldn’t have happened,” he said. “Not to you.”

“Caitlin,” Barry paused, licking his lips and swallowing again, “Caitlin said that we still have each other’s brains. Some things are physiological, even if they seem psychological.”

Len rolled his eyes and Barry was unnerved to realize it only resembled Captain Cold’s patented eyeroll faintly. “But it wasn’t happening _before_ ,” he said stressing the last word. “I apologized to my sister yesterday. Literally. I said the word _sorry_.”

“The fact that you were being nice is concerning to you,” Barry said slowly.

“Yes!” Len said. “Because I am not nice. You are the nice one, not me. And I’m the criminal mastermind, not you.”

“I’m not acting like a criminal mastermind,” Barry protested crossing his arms defensively.

Len raised a judgmental eyebrow and tugged the top drawer of the dresser Barry had been living out of for the past few weeks open. He pushed aside the pile of socks drawing item after item out and lining them up along the top. Barry opened his mouth to protest again but closed it after a few moments without a word.

“Cisco spent three hours looking for this yesterday,” Len said holding up the last object he’d pulled out. “Do you even know what this does?”

“Do you?” Barry asked sullenly.

“That’s not the point,” Len replied. “Why’d you take it?”

“Because I…” Barry trailed off staring at the row of small items he’d pilfered over the past few days, a few he didn't even remember picking up. He blinked, understanding dawning on him as he turned to stare at Len instead. “Oh my God,” he hissed feeling unreasonably betrayed and jabbing Len hard in the chest with a finger, “you really can’t help yourself, can you? Rory wasn’t joking when he called you a klepto.”

Len shrugged, setting Cisco’s whatever it was back on the dresser.

“How many things have you taken?” Barry asked before complete comprehension set in. “Oh my God, you’re the one who took my wallet, aren’t you?”

“Definitely,” Len said unapologetically. “I have a box. Don’t worry, I’ll give it all back. Well, most of it.”

“A box,” Barry echoed. “Again, how many things have you taken?”

“In the last few days?” Len asked sounding somber. “None.”

Barry swallowed glancing once again at the items lined up accusingly across the top of his dresser. “This is bad.”

Len sighed, dragging his hands through his hair. “Yeah, you can say that again.”

* * *

“So how do you _feel_?” the Ramon kid, Cisco part of Len’s mind piped up, asked peering intently at Barry like the universe’s secrets would be revealed on his skin.

Len frowned, both from proxy discomfort at Cisco’s gaze burrowing into Barry’s face and from the ridiculousness of the question. If the kid had been paying the least bit of attention for the first half of the conversation then he should already know the answer. Beyond that he and Barry had been stuck in each other’s bodies for almost a month, so clearly they were feeling a bit apprehensive about it becoming a permanent situation.

“Not terribly well, Cisco,” Barry deadpanned, leaning away with a pointed look that soared right over the science idiot’s head. Len recognized it easy enough more than familiar with the desire to keep people an arms length or two away.

“Well, yeah,” Cisco said waving his hands and sounding slightly distressed. “But, like, do you feel…criminally?”

Barry visibly repressed the urge to roll his eyes and settled for a put upon sigh. “What does that even mean? Do I feel criminally?”

“Like, do you have the urge to do criminal things?” Cisco clarified.

“Yes, I’m having the urge to run you over with my car.”

Cisco frowned. “But you don’t have a car," he pointed out.

“Then I’ll steal one,” Barry snapped, and Len stifled down a snort of amusement. “Can't be that hard.”

Cisco glanced over his shoulder to Caitlin whose attention was completely focused on the results of the tests she and Cisco had just finished running. “I'm gonna take that as a yes for criminal predilections,” he said before turning to Len. “What about you, Cold? Any criminal senses running through you?”

“No,” Len replied honestly without even the slightest inclination to lie. He frowned digging Cisco’s small contraption from his pocket and tossed it to the other man. “In fact, I’m feeling downright philanthropistic. I believe this is yours.”

Cisco caught it with only a little bit of fumbling, jaw dropping open and staying that way as he gaped at Len. “I was looking everywhere for this! I can’t believe you swiped it with your sticky, sticky fingers.”

“ _I_ didn’t,” Len said stressing the first word. He glanced pointedly at Barry. “Not technically.”

Cisco twisted around casting a furtive look between the two of them. “Oh boy. This is not good.”

Barry smiled thinly, the following slightly accented drawl sounding entirely too much like Len for his own comfort. “You don't say.”

“Yes!” Caitlin cried cutting Len off before he could say anything in response. He closed his mouth deliberating on whether or not he wanted to put more distance between himself and the overly excited scientist who’d been decidedly more unhappy with him since he’d cornered her the other day.

“Yes what?” Barry asked when Caitlin failed to elaborate and simply continued typing frantically at her computer.

Cisco kicked his foot against the floor pushing his chair to roll over next to Caitlin. He peered intently at the screen with her for a long moment before pointing and asking a rushed question that sounded far too technical for Len to even contemplate trying to puzzle out right now. Invested as he was in whatever they were talking about, he was too tired and too frustrated to do more than wait impatiently for the good doctors to explain in smaller words. Barry had an expression of faint comprehension on his face but looked like he’d fallen behind in the conversation and lacked the motivation to catch back up.

After a few more minutes of nearly incoherent technobabble Len dug his fingers into his eyes and said loudly, “Do you mind cluing me in here? Have you figured it out or not?”

Dr. Snow grinned at him, her smile near blinding with its joyfulness. Probably at the prospect of having Barry back and getting rid of him. “I think so,” she said glancing at Cisco. “I really think this could work. The energy signatures the simulation ran are near direct matches for what we recorded during your fight with the meta.”

“Great,” Len said rubbing his hands together as something eased in his chest at the first sight of a light at the end of the tunnel. “Then let’s do this.”

Caitlin bit her lip, visibly hesitating, and Cisco furrowed his brows. “Uh, we should probably run a few more tests before—” he started.

“No,” Len said glancing at Barry to see if the kid would back him up. “No, we do it now.”

Barry held Len's gaze for a long moment worrying at his lower lip before nodding as he turned to Caitlin and Cisco. “Len’s right,” he said. “We do it now.”

Caitlin and Cisco shared a look, communicating silently for several long and tense moments before apparently reaching a decision. “All right,” Caitlin said. "Now it is."

The knot in Len’s chest eased even further. It felt kind of surreal as Caitlin and Cisco flitted around the lab putting God only knew what together before settling Len and Barry each in one hospital bed and beginning to attach monitor after monitor.

“Is this really necessary?” Len asked wincing as Caitlin slid an IV into his arm “We weren’t hooked up to all this stuff the first time around.”

“It’s precautionary,” she replied poking at a few buttons on the monitor. “Plus, we’re going to sedate you both.”

Len blinked glancing between Caitlin and Barry. “Sedate?” he repeated dropping his gaze to the IV that suddenly seemed quite a bit more sinister. The heart rate monitor that had been beeping along in the background spiked despite Len’s attempts to keep it steady.

“Len, it’ll be fine,” Barry said as Caitlin looked between the monitor and Len in concern.

“It’s just precautionary,” Caitlin said again. “You and Barry are less likely to experience complications or react negatively if you’re—”

“Helpless,” Len finished, mouth oddly dry.

Caitlin winced. “I was going to say…calm and stable.”

“Len, it’s going to be fine,” Barry repeated. Len ignored him settling back on the bed and fixing his gaze up at the ceiling.

Caitlin hovered by his side, shifting her weight nervously. “Uh, do you want, I mean, we can wait for a bit? Have your sister or Rory come in—”

“No,” Len said. Mick was one thing, but he wasn’t going to let Lisa see him this unnerved and there was no way Lisa wouldn’t come too if Len called Mick. “No, forget it. I'm fine. Just do it.”

Caitlin sighed but turned away pressing a few more buttons on the monitor. “You’ll be out in a few moments,” she said. “You won’t even feel it.”

Len nodded his head jerkily and tried to ignore how the incessant beeping of the stupid heart monitor continued to climb. He blinked waiting for the promised oblivion.

“Hopefully,” Caitlin said laying a reassuring hand on Len’s shoulder that he refused to feel comforted by, “when you two wake up you’ll be back to normal.”

* * *

The first thing Barry noticed was that, when he stretched across the bed like a lazy cat, nothing hurt. He blinked awake in seconds glancing first to the clock that informed him it was a quarter past seven then to himself in the mirror he was suddenly standing before.

His own face stared back at him and it was with all the relief in the world that he watched his features respond to his commands and his limbs move when he wanted them to move. He ran his fingers through his hair before patting his cheeks with his hands marveling over just how damn good it felt to back in his own body. Oddly enough neither Cisco nor Caitlin were in the lab with them though the steaming cup of coffee by Caitlin’s desk suggested she’d only stepped out for a few moments. She was going to be so excited when she realized it had worked.

Speaking of people being pleased that they were once again in their own bodies.

Spinning back around Barry flashed over to Len’s bed where the other man was still curled on his side fast asleep. Barry was relieved to see that in spite of the distress the other man had exhibited earlier he seemed to be resting just fine now.

Barry gnawed on his lower lip for a moment before reaching out hesitantly to shake the other man’s shoulder saying softly, “Len, wake up.”

Len jerked awake before Barry even really touched him, sitting up fast enough that Barry winced in sympathy and shuffling as far from Barry as he could without falling off the bed. He blinked, squinting against the bright light of the lab and staring at Barry uncomprehendingly a moment before his confusion cleared and he looked down at his own hands.

“Barry,” he rasped. “Barry, we’re in our own bodies.”

“Yes,” Barry affirmed. “Yes, we are. I am me and you are you. It worked!”

Len closed his eyes falling to the side to collapse against the pillows. “Oh, thank god,” he said, words half muffled. “I was worried it wouldn’t.”

He shifted, staring up at Barry with one eye. Barry frowned realizing uncomfortably that, positioned as he was, Len was viewing the world in only partial color. The small scar from the orbital rim fracture stood out starkly under the florescent lighting. It was startling to realize he'd never see Len the same way again; that he was intimately aware of the inner workings of Captain Cold. The same could be said of Len for Barry. In the last few weeks they'd learned a lot about each other that could be used to harm if they had the intention to do so. 

“What do you think, Scarlet?” Len asked pulling Barry from his thoughts. His words were drawn out in a slow drawl that Barry realized he’d honestly missed a little bit. “Glad to be back to your flashy ways?”

“Definitely. Are you glad to be back to your…thieving self?” Barry said stumbling over the descriptive term when the first things that flashed through his mind was all variations on the word pained. Although, in spite of the level of pain Barry knew Len had to be experiencing at the moment he looked remarkably relaxed. 

Len rolled his eyes undoubtedly catching on to Barry’s real question buried beneath the one he asked. “As hard as it might be to believe,” Len said giving Barry perhaps the first genuine smile ever while in his own body, “I am.”

* * *

Len didn’t like looking at himself. It was a fact few people knew, Mick being the sole person who understood the true depth of Len’s feelings on the matter and Lisa only peripherally aware. Doing so now, though, fostered an odd sense of relief. Len raised one hand to brush his fingertips over his face, pressing lightly on the barely discernable raised scar above his eye.

Barry had let his hair grow out longer than Len liked to keep it. Almost long enough for Len to get a grip on. If he slid his fingers through it the strands were just the right length to catch and pull and maybe even hold.

He’d have to get Mick to cut it for him.

It felt good, though, to be back in his own body. Len slid his hands over the soft material of the turtleneck Lisa had brought him. His fingertips tingled uncomfortably and rather than be annoyed at the sensation Len kind of appreciated it. After another glance to the mirror, a double check to make sure he was still _himself_ , Len pulled on his fleece peacoat welcoming the warmth it provided almost instantly. Ever since being back in his own body the hardest thing to readjust to hadn't been the level of pain but the ever-present chill that had set in since STAR Labs wasn’t exactly the warmest building. The pain Len was used too; the frozen fingers and toes coupled with the small all-encompassing body tremors that persisted until he drank about five or six mugs of hot chocolate never failed to irritate him.

Len slipped from the room he’d called his own for the past few weeks habitually peeking around the corners before straightening the collar of his coat and heading for one of the back exits where he knew Lisa and Mick were waiting for him outside. He was almost free, only a few yards from the door, when he felt a breeze over the back of his neck and Barry was suddenly several steps before him.

“You weren’t thinking about leaving without saying goodbye, were you?” Barry asked leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. Len appreciated the fact that he kept a good couple feet between them. What he didn’t appreciate was the fact that Barry was now effectively blocking the narrow hallway with his stupidly lanky body. To get past him Len would have to get closer than he was willing to at the moment.

Len arched one eyebrow because it was quite obvious that he’d been planning on doing exactly that. “Scarlet, we may have spent the last few weeks inside one another, but make no mistake, we are not friends.”

“You know, you really hurt my feelings sometimes,” Barry replied tone lilting towards mock-sorrow even though he was smiling.

Len grinned right back making sure his had a hard, shark-like edge. “Good.”

Barry just kept smiling at him with a scarily expectant look on his face that reminded Len strongly of Lisa when she was little and he’d inadvertently promised her ice cream.

Len sighed, crossing his arms and firming up his stance. “What do you want, Barry? Are you planning on trying to arrest me?”

Barry’s smile faded some, eyes tightening just a bit at the corners. After another long moment he dropped his gaze to the floor and pushed himself off the wall while delving his hand into his pocket. “Thought you might want this back,” he said holding out the quarter Len had given him during the second week of their exile in each other’s bodies.

“It’s just a quarter, Barry,” Len said even as he held his hand out for Barry to drop the coin in his palm. It was surprisingly warm, probably from being in Barry’s pocket. Len swiped his thumb over the face nearly unrecognizable and worn smooth from many years of use. It may just be a quarter, but it was the same quarter he’d been using for years. If he had left without getting it back he was sentimental enough that he would have felt a sense of loss.

Len pinched the coin between his index and thumb, pushing it up and rolling it along the top of his hand. “I’d forgotten what it was like, you know,” he said letting the quarter dance across knuckles stiff and out of practice from the weeks of relative inactivity. Barry had attempted to pick up the exercise several times, but even with Len’s coaching he’d never mastered the movements enough to make much use of it.

“What what was like?” Barry asked.

Len sighed, coin slipping between his fingers and falling to the floor with clatter. “What it was like to not be in pain,” he said staring down at the quarter. He briefly contemplated stooping to retrieve it then dismissed the idea. After weeks of not carefully maintaining his routine every thing was hurting just that bit more. And, besides, like he’d told Barry, it was only a quarter after all. Shaking himself out of his thoughts he rolled his shoulders and neck, smiling grimly at the all too familiar aches and pains that came with the motion. “Well, I’ll see you around, kid,” he said giving a tip of his imaginary hat as he brushed by the speedster to leave.

“Len,” Barry called and against his better judgment Len halted turning back to see what the kid wanted. Barry leaned down to retrieve the quarter sliding his fingers along its edges before reaching out to gently settle it into Len’s palm putting only the barest of pressure against his skin.

“Caitlin and Cisco,” Barry said slowly sliding his hand from Len’s, “they could probably find a way to help. Find a way to, you know, manage the pain. And I mean, like, other than the usual avenues.”

Len dropped his gaze from Barry’s earnest face, swiping his thumb over the worn face of the quarter and smiling faintly at the implicit promise in Barry’s words. He tucked the quarter into his pocket quirking an eyebrow at the speedster as he said, “I’ll think about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annndd, that's a wrap. The pseudo-plot is resolved. Nothing really happened, but Barry and Len are sooo much closer now. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hoped you enjoyed it.
> 
> As always I can be followed on [tumblr](http://little-red-and-his-wolves.tumblr.com) if interested. Given my, uh, obsession with Lenny and Mick I'll probably end up writing something else for them in the future.


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